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Monday, April 28, 2008

An Enclave commenter posted a series of weekend e-mails that indicate that Anna Shepherd (who was listed in the "task force" press release as a Donelson-Hermitage Neighborhood Association representative) was hand-picked to represent "the community" rather than the neighborhood association, which has been one of the more vocal opponents of the Tygard's LED bill.

In the series, it looks like Tygard and CM Jim Gotto thumb their noses at the Donelson-Hermitage governing board by encouraging Ms. Shepherd to stay on above the protests of the Donelson-Hermitage president, who penned the following e-mail to Mr. Tygard and the entire Metro Council yesterday:

[UPDATE: Letter removed at request of author.]

As I wrote yesterday, Ms. Shepherd can also be considered an advocate for churches. She works for the Catholic Archdiocese. Effectively 2 of the 4 community members of Tygard's group are church reps from Donelson-Hermitage. Throw in sign-maker Bobby Joslin, and that leaves the neighborhoods facing stiff odds with only 1 advocate to defend their interests.

1 comment:

From: Donelson-Hermitage NA To: charlie.tygard@nashville.gov ; Charlie Tygard Cc: councilmembers@nashville.gov Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2008 8:50 PMSubject: DHNA was not invited to be part of the LED task force-Why were we included in press release?

Councilman Tygard,Our organization is very concerned that you issued a press release listing a representative of the Donelson-Hermitage Neighborhood Association (DHNA) to serve on the LED task force when DHNA was never contacted to send such a representative. While this community member from Hermitage does serve on the board of our group, she was asked to serve on this task force only as a community member recommended by Councilman Gotto. The emails that I received from both the community member and from Councilman Gotto indeed state that she was asked to simply represent the community, not DHNA. Even with this understanding, her name was listed as representing our group.

This was extremely unfair both to the community member and DHNA. Can you tell me why this was done?

Our organization is always happy to send a representative to serve, but just like the Metro Council DHNA has bylaws and procedures as to how go about doing that. In order to send a representative from DHNA, the party seeking that representative would need to contact the president of our organization. The president would then meet with our board of directors to select the representative to represent DHNA.

DHNA is a coalition of over 20 neighborhood groups as well as individual neighbors whose purpose is, among other things, to maintain and improve the residential quality of life in the Donelson-Hermitage community. We also strive to be active participants in public policy decision making processes that may impact our area of membership. We take our organization and the work in our community very seriously, as do neighborhood groups throughout the city of Nashville. Placing our name in the press as participants, when we were never asked as a group to participate, sends a false message to all other neighborhood groups in this city.

Our board of directors and membership would like an explanation as to why the press release included the name of our organization when the community member clearly stated that she represented the community only and not DHNA. We would also request that you clarify this matter to the task force, the council, neighborhood groups throughout the city, and the press before the task force meets on Monday.